Monday, June 8, 2015

FIFA Women's World Cup Stickers

Looking for attention for women's sports can sometime feel
like rolling a square rock up a very steep hill. But one Swedish women’s
football fan has managed to change her sport just a little.

This week the football (or soccer depending on where you
are) Women’s World Cup takes place in Canada. Bad news is FIFA is torn apart
with scandals, and the women are playing on astroturf. That second thing is
pretty awful to be honest, you would ever hear of a similar men’s tournament not
on grass.

But in one corner of football something good happened thanks
to Elin Bjarnegård.

Have you ever seen little kids sitting in the playground
avidly swapping football cards? You might have noticed they’re usually male
players.

“Collector cards featuring football stars
are very popular among young football fans. Consequently they are produced for every
major football event - except for when the players are female. The company
Panini has no current plans to produce cards for the FIFA World Cup taking
place in Canada the summer of 2015. They have also indicated that they may be
willing to reconsider, should there be an interest in collector cards featuring
female football stars.”

Almost 2000 people joined with
many others advocating in their own countries. And now the stickers exist.

Hilariously the FIFA/ Panini statement made zero
mention of the pressure they were under. Just this sideways acknowledgement:

Panini’s Peter Warsop said: “We have
already had many fans of the game reaching out to us from all over the world in
anticipation of a sticker album being launched and we are delighted to be
providing this to them.”